Search form

February 2013 Rocket Ship Ska Trip Archives

Ooh, was it Bob Marley’s birthday? (No, it was actually the morning after. There’s got to be a… oh, never mind) Anyhoo, the RSST Crew launched this week’s show with a set of tunes stretching from Bob’s pre-Wailers recording debut in 1962 (“Judge Not”), all the way to 2 Tone-era songs the man didn’t even write, but were nevertheless named “Concrete Jungle” and “Rat Race” by their composer, Specials guitarist Roddy (“Radiation”) Byers. Aboard the Voovie Doo, Sherwood was feelin’ a change in the air, so on went “My Foolish Heart (Crazy in Shibuya)”, the online single Soil and “Pimp” Sessions cut with Shiina Ringo. The “February” tracks from our two “calendar albums”, Hal Blaine’s “Flashy” from Psychedelic Percussion and Emil Richards’ “Amethyst” from Stones, got the ol’ Planet off to a rollicking start, while Francis Bay went undercover as “John Evans” to bookend Sherwood’s show-within-a-show with “The Peanut Vendor”. The Home Stretch “gotcha SKAvered” in Portuguese again with Wanderlea’s contribution to (“Meu Bem”) Lolli-dom, backed by Renato and his Blue Caps. The 5@5-past-5 took us into Ska’s Lost Decade (roughly ’68-‘78) with tracks by everybody from the Milwaukee Coasters (1968) to Carlos Malcolm & the Fireburners (1970) to Plastic Bertrand (1977). Pitbull’s “Funky Kingston”-looping “Don’t Stop the Party” landed the Ship for another week, just in time for “The End”. Don’t worry… this show ends once every week, making The End a rather commonplace occurence. Tune in and stay tuned; it’ll happen again!

Happy Skalentines from RSST! The “Ooooooh” is jam-packed with all the ska oldies designed to bring out the warm-fuzzies in you and yours… and for those of you without a “yours”, consolation prizes from Phyllis Dillon, Prince Buster and Justin Hinds. Sherwood stayed in the spirit with papayas and mangos straight from Rosemary Clooney’s shady nook… and Shiina Ringo’s shady nuke, respectively… and just wait’ll you hear who Dizzy Gillespie met in the Land of Oo-Bla-Dee! The Home Stretch gave us Pily Gaos extolling the virtues of“Mi Novio Esquimale” (her “Lollipop” by any other name), the 5@5:05 were 5 uninterrupted Froggies, and… whatever else you do, don’t get Bonnie PinkorThe Miceteeth wrong! And remember… “There’ll Always Be Sunshine” on that “Marvelous Trip to the Planets”. Tune in, and stay tuned!

In the “Ooh”… Driving west, we left Earth for some duck soup and a melody jamboree with Doreth …and that was just the first 15 minutes! Later, we encountered a bit of a mystery involving a tune Best of The Skatalites identifies as “Don’t Slam the Door”. Mystery: another Skatalites cut also goes by this title, and this tune also goes by another title! We’ve come to the conclusion that this tune is in fact “Always On Sunday”. Sherwood hit a couple of new releases in his early going .Ambrus Kyri sang the Lollipop this week, the 5@5:05 was a broadly-themed “US Ska” set, and the Eskargot Miles again took us “Around the World in 80 Days”… in only 5:28! Now, that’s time compression!

Ooooh! This week, we’ve found the original version of a tune The Skatalites covered on a Studio 1 45. They called it “Beardman Ska”, and the original Ernie Freeman cut on Imperial was called “Live It Up”. We played ‘em back-to-back. Bob Andy (with an uncredited Marcia Griffiths) also turns up in Hour 1, as well as Peter Tosh (spelled “Touch” on the label), Joya Landis and a certain Vietnam All Stars headed up by Prince Buster. On Buster’s own label, “The Toughest” was an untitled “Instrumental” credited to Buster’s All Stars. As “The Toughest”, the record gets credited to Vietnam All Stars on Rio… and Studio 1? We’ll get back to you on that. Sherwood B. Funn reprises the mysterious Charlie’s charming “Hawaii Cha Cha”, and The Orb make their Planet debut with “Pomme Fritz (Meat and Veg)”. Out of character for The Orb, but it works well in Sherwood’s bag and is a fine, fun(n) piece of work, and followed up by Ken Nordine’s “Speck of Dust” from his second Grateful Dead Records release (we don’t have his first), Upper Limbo.Billie Tam kicks off The Home Stretch with her Boy Lollipop, the 5@5:05 is a numbers game, and Cultivator deliver up an 8+min. slab of dubbed-out ska called “Aka Hige Dub”, with Rude & Visser hot on their heels. Sound like your bag? Tune in (to the archives), and stay tuned!